Utv to launch a new station in the republic

irishfeen wrote: »

I wonder will UTV Ireland be an All Ireland broadcaster replacing UTV in the north or will UTV NI continue alongside?

munchkin_utd wrote: »

as I alluded to, they have a remit to provide local content for northern Ireland which won them the ITV contract, which every so often they have to re-apply for so it would be very important for them to stick to what has won them a record number of contract re-issuings

plus northern ireland has a large section of the population allergic to the republic so you wouldnt want to go too heavy on inflicting too many southern accents on them or you'd loose them as a customer base for your advertising.

plus, stuff like the champions league they would only have rights for northern ireland for, just as tv3 might have only rights for FAI games in the south, so you just cant have a universal 32 county single channel.

So you'd basically have TV3 mark 2 in the south with more overlap with UTV on home made programmes.

icdg wrote: »

This is massive news alright, and has the potential to be the biggest seachange in Irish broadcasting since TV3's original agreement with the then Granada in 2000!

This destroys overnight TV3's current strategy. They are effectively faced with some major decisions to make on their future, but they still have a number of major assets: the main television programme service contract, with all the must carry obligations and prime EPG positions that come with it; as well as an existing studio complex, set up and other contracts. They could give up and enter negotiations with UTV to sell the company to them. This would allow UTV to seamlessly take over the 103 slot on Sky Digital (where otherwise it is likely to be well down the EPG) as well as TV3's position on Saorview.

The other strategy would be to fight. This would involve using the 15 month or so lead in to acquire new content, with the aim of reinventing TV3 as something more akin to its original self, broadcasting Channel 5 and Sky One type shows as well as US miniseries. Ultimately in this scenario I don't think there'd be any room for 3e as the resulting channel would effectively be a mix of the present TV3 and 3e.

Worth noting what we're likely to be losing too - at least cable viewers - access to ITV's sports programmes (although much of this has moved to ITV4 anyway), ITN, and ITV movies and imports, although anyone who wants any of this badly enough could get satellite (if they can).

Macy0161 wrote: »

With the amount of content that tv3 simulcasts from itv anyway, its more the other way around anyway.

Regarding their UK licence, they could just have a separate news programme in this state, when they have ITV news and the local news. An hour long news programme in the evening could really put it up to rte.

Can't remember when it was last watched in this house, but no tv3 would mean no 3e, so saorview could actually lose a channel. Whether people consider it a loss is a different question.